The cable TV companies are starting to realize that other video technologies …

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In the flip side of the stories coming out about giant IP service providers worrying over squeezing more profits, the world of cable television has started to wonder if their future revenue might suffer from the rise of Internet Protocol Television, or IPTV.

Last month, at the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers' (SCTE) Emerging Technologies conference in Tampa, Florida, the main topic of discussion was about emerging technologies like IPTV and how they could be threatening cable television. In addition to the two US telecommunication giants, Verizon and the new AT&T, who could offer new IPTV services, there are also upstarts in the Internet Video world, like Google Video and Apple's iTunes Video Store.

"IPTV is the future of television," said Nimrod Ben-Natan, vice president of solutions for Harmonic Inc., a provider of optical networking and digital video systems to cable, satellite and telephone operators. "It's a cool technology with unique capabilities. Cable operators may lose their leading position as video providers if they don't embrace at least parts of it."

While there are many willing to gush over IPTV, it has some drawbacks. Current broadband providers struggle to deliver 20 Megabits per second (Mbps) over their fastest ADSL2 lines. A single high-resolution, progressive scan (1080p) stream of video, even highly compressed with H.264 encoding, sucks up from 12-15 Mbps by itself, seriously limiting the potential for multiple video streams on current technology. However, firms like Verizon are confident that they have the bandwidth to serve their customers' current and future demands.

But competition in the video service provider arena is not the only concern of the cable companies. With people spending less time watching TV and more time surfing the Web, companies are anxious to provide more of their customer's communications needs. This is the reason why the cable companies embraced broadband Internet access, and why providers like Canada's Shaw are now pushing full-service packages that include cable TV, high-speed Internet, and even Voice-over-IP (VoIP) services:

"It's not about the video," said Kshitij Kumar, director of business development for C-COR, a network support company. "It's a battle for the consumer's entire communications package. Video will be an important part of it but it's not the only thing."

The rise of IPTV and other digital video technologies like the iTunes Video Store is certainly making a grab at our hearts and wallets. Do the cable companies really have to worry about IPTV? In my opinion, a little competition usually winds up being good for everybody, including the companies themselves. Cable companies have already shown that they can adapt to the world of broadband Internet, so providing an attractive package including downloadable video content and VoIP might make a winning combination. Just try not to bump up the prices too much, please. In a world where our budgets and credit cards are already stretched to the limit, the latest, fastest, highest-resolution downloadable video content may wind up being something that people can live without.